Topic Sentence - Ms Kirkwood



QUESTIONChoose a novel or a short story in which there is a character that you feel sorry for. Explain what the story is about and show what makes you feel sympathetic towards the character.‘Hieroglyphics’ by Anne Donovan is a short story in which the main character of Mary is dyslexic. This leads to her having a difficult experience of school life. The character of Mary narrates the story from the perspective of looking back on her experiences. This effective mode of narration, along with the writer’s use of language and key incidents, gives the reader a clear sense of what Mary’s experience is like, and thus allows the reader to feel sympathetic towards the character.CONTEXT – when in the story this is shown in the evidenceFirstly, sympathy is evoked from the outset as we are immediately made aware that Mary suffers from dyslexia. The opening of the story helps to establish the impact this is having upon her:EVIDENCE – note this is a long quotation so it’s isolated on a separate line“Ah mind they were birlin and dancin roond like big black spiders. A couldnae keep a haunle on them fur every time ah thoat ah'd captured them, tied them thegither in some kindy order they jist kep on escapin.”EVALUATIONANALYSIS- comment on how techniques are used to convey what dyslexia is like and make me feel sorry for herHere Donovan is making clever use of imagery in the above simile which compares Mary’s ability to read, to the difficult and frustrating activity of catching a spider. The words ‘birlin’ and ‘dancin’ convey the frenzied actions and lack of control that we have when trying to catch a spider; thus, this illustrates the lack of control that Mary has over words on a page. Furthermore, the words ‘captured’ and ‘escapin’ imply that Mary is in constant conflict with the words but she can never command them. Overall, this can be considered an effective introduction to the issue of dyslexia as it gives a clear sense of the frustration that Mary has to contend with in her life. This therefore exemplifies how knowledge of Mary’s learning difficulty evokes sympathy from the reader.Furthermore, the narrative reveals that Mary has to cope with an unsupportive mother. This is demonstrated when Mary mimics the remembered conversation between her mother and primary teacher. The Primary teacher is clearly trying to point out that there is ‘a genuine difficulty’ preventing Mary from progressing; however, the abrupt interruptions from her mother suggest that she blames Mary for her lack of progress:??? “She's lazy, ye mean.”The very fact that Mary recalls the words of her mother many years after the event, demonstrates how much of an influence her mother’s lack of support had on her. Similarly, this technique of recounting conversations between Mary and influential people during her childhood helps to give the story a sense of authenticity. By giving this greater insight into Mary’s feelings, Donovan encourages us to pity her more.Another aspect of the story which evokes sympathy is Mary’s recount of how she is treated by her teachers; this suggests that they are failing to meet her needs. She appears to be treated poorly on a number of occasions; whether by her Primary teacher who sees her as hr ‘little assistant’ who is ‘so good with the younger children’ or Miss Niven, her History teacher in S1, who allows her to fall behind the rest of the class and only do simple tasks like the colouring in. Mary is very aware that she is thought of as ‘a poor wee soul, but she tries very hard’. Nevertheless perhaps the most shocking attitude is that displayed by ‘the remmy wummin’ – a Learning Support teacher who should be used to catering to the needs of these pupils. This is llustrated in Mary’s comment about her attitude:“She wis nice tae me at furst but then when ah couldnae dae the hings she wis geein me she began tae get a bit scunnered.”This description is effective as use of the word ‘scunnered’ is a word from the regional dialect of Glasgow, where Mary is from. This word means fed up and annoyed, and these two qualities that I think the ‘remmy wummin’ should not show in her dealings with pupils. The very idea that Mary recognises this attitude in her brings out our sympathies. Furthermore, Mr Kelly’s treatment of Mary could be regarded as bullying. Kelly, a former Latin teacher, is recognised as ‘old school’ in his approaches and his behaviour towards Mary means that there is conflict between the two characters throughout the story. One key incident which show Kelly’s treatment of Mary occurs when he is dictating a note to the class. Having reviewed her writing, Kelly suggests that her writing resembles Hieroglyphics. He goes on to ridicule her in front of the entire class:“And since the function of reading is to communicate, what point is there in writing something which is utterly unintelligible?”Here, in retelling her memories of primary, Mary mimics Kelly’s tone of voice. This is achieved through the use of the very formal word choice ‘utterly unintelligible’ which gives the character’s speech a pompous quality. This reflects the fact the Kelly looks down on Mary and shows that he is quite happy to devalue her work. Given that throughout the story we are given a sense that Mary always tries her best, we feel a great sense of pity that her best work is never good enough for Kelly. All in all her treatment by Kelly, in terms of her own racehorse image used to describe the class, makes Mary feel like “the wan that fell at the furst fence.” The comparison with the fallen racehorse suggests that Mary feels that she’s not good enough. Therefore it can be seen that Mary lacks self confidence and this is yet another reason why we pity her.The attitude of Kelly then leads to her fellow pupils isolating her; a fact that makes me sympathise with Mary. It becomes clear to her that ‘naebody wants tae sit near the target practice’ as there is always an empty seat next to her in class. This is also the case in the playground. The story establishes that the start of secondary is an important time, thus Mary’s comment on her situation shows how unhappy she feels:“ah fund masel oot the dance wioot a partner. And it wisnae nice.”This metaphor is effective in suggesting that Mary, by missing out on friendships, is missing out on the fun that school has to offer. The word ‘dance’ suggests to me fun, happiness and moving around in partnerships. However, Mary is missing out on this. The simplicity of the sentence ‘And it wisnae nice’ is really an understatement as to how she feels. This makes me understand that not only does her learning difficulty have educational implications, but also social implications.Thus, it is significant that the ending shows Mary is able to take pride in her work in class despite the attitude of her teachers. This is shown at the story’s turning point when ‘wan day [she] couldnae take it oany longer’. Mary decides to show her creative ability by rebelling against Kelly and writing a whole story in her own hieroglyphics. This is a key incident as it shows how a character can overcome the negativity of others and the sight of her work so covered in pen that it ‘looks like wee scarab beetles bleedin’, to become a confident individual who has worked out how to overcome her problems. Her final triumph is highlighted in when she describes walking around the classroom seeing ‘aw different kinds of hand writing’. This illustrates Mary’s realisation that everyone has different abilities. This encourages her to take pride in her work:“So ah drew a wee picture of masel wi a cheery face on it, pit ma story right on tap ae the pile and planted the whole lot doon in the centre of his desk.”This is the last sentence of the story and it can be recognised as an effective ending to the text. The ‘cheery face’ that Mary draws is representative of her feelings of happiness with her work and the sense of achievement that she has gained, while the placement of her work ‘right on the tap’ is significant as it contrasts with the earlier idea that she was the one who ‘fell at the furst fence’. Therefore, we can be inspired by Mary’s strength of character that enables her to overcome her problems; however, we must still feel sympathy for her is that she was never given the proper help and support.Overall, Donovan’s short story ‘Hieroglyphics’ gives a clear impression of the character of Mary’s experience of education, and it is through the character’s descriptions of her experiences using first person narration and other language techniques that makes me feel sympathetic towards the character of Mary. ................
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